Perry v. Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington Railroad Co.

Citations

• 24 Del. 399
• 1 Boyce 399
• 77 A. 725
• 1910 Del. LEXIS 49

Syllabus

<p>Demurrer—Admissions—Common Carriers—Private Carriers— Express Messengers—Messengers as Passengers—Contracts Between Common Carriers—Contracts of Messengers With Express Companies—Personal Injuries—A ctions—Survival A cts—Death Acts—Recovery by Party Injured— Settlement—Release—Effect on Action for Death.</p> <p>1. A demurrer admits as true all material allegations which are well pleaded.</p> <p>2. Railroad and express companies are each common carriers for the public; but each is a private carrier to the other.</p> <p>3. A railroad company in carrying the business and messenger of an express company does so not as a common carrier, but as a private carrier; and, as such private carrier, it enj'oys freedom of contract, and may stipulate for exemption from liability for injury and loss resulting from negligence or otherwise.</p> <p>4. An express messenger occupying a car in charge of express matter under a contract between his company and a railroad company—each being a private carrier to the other—is not a passenger of the latter company.</p> <p>5. A contract between an express company and a railroad company for carrying the business and employees of the former by which the express company assumed all risk of injury to its goods and employees, and agreed^ to keep the railroad company harmless from all loss arising therefrom, is valid, since the two companies sustain the relation of private carrier to each other.</p> <p>6. A contract between an express company and its messenger by which the latter assumed all risk of injury for negligence of any railroad company when being carried by it in the performance of his services as messenger, made in consideration of his employment as such, and with the knowledge of and assent to a contract between the express company and a railroad company for carrying the business and employees of the former whereby it assumed all risk of loss and injury and indemnified the railroad company against all liability arising therefrom, from n